LAND VALUATIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 218, 14 August 1937, Page 5

LAND VALUATIONS

REPLY TO FARMERS’ UNION

MINISTER’S STATEMENT.

Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Aug. 13. Land valuations, a subject very prominent in the deliberations oi the recent conference of tbo Farmers’ Union, were discussed by the Minister in Charge of the Valuation Department, (Hon. F. Langstone) in a statement this evening. He said people, through the everyday transactions of buying, selling, leasing, exchanging and otherwise disposing of land, established the basis on which valuations were made. Land was worth what it could bo made lo produce but the assessment of unimproved value could not and should not be arrived at from the actual production of each individaul farm.

“In regard to the claim that no sound system of valuing farm lands can be evolved until the whole system of farm accountancy and past, present and future responsibilities have been completely investigated, I maintain this as purely a question for the farmers themselves and for their organisations. In no way can the Valuation Department become responsible for laxity on the part of farmers in this connection. The claim that improvements are written down 50 per cent, and this figure is added to the unimproved value, thus causing the farmer to be taxed twice, is absurd and will not bear close analysis. As I have already pointed out, improvements either in town or country lorm practically no pjirt of the unimproved value of a property.

“Referring to land taxation, I find that of the £1,049,010 tax assessed in 1936-37, £629,760 came from rural areas and £419,844 from urban areas. Sixty per cent, of the tax is collected from a comparatively small area. 'The graduated land tax, approximately £590,000, was collected in the same proportion. Farmers who occupy or own an area of an unimproved value of less than £3OOO, pay no income tax on their earnings therefrom and if the land is mortgaged, they have also exemption from assessments of land tax up to the amount of the mortgage.

“I know cases where farmers having incomes of £IOO9 to £ISOO per annum pay neither land tax nor income tax. The maximum exemption in respect of .the graduated land tax applies to properties of an unimproved value of £7500 where, if the mortgage equals or exceeds that amount, a deduction up to £7500 from the assessable unimproved value is allowed.

Thus no land tax is payable in such cases. If the unimproved value exceeds £7500, the mortgage"deduction allowable is decreased by £1 for every £1 of such excess. Mortgage exemption ceases when tbo unimproved value reaches £15,000.”